STRICT LIABILITY
Sunday, July 19th, 2009Certain situations are so dangerous and/or unreasonable that the law holds the defendant strictly liable for any direct and natural injury that results (must prove causation and injury) without considering if the acts of the defendant were reasonable or not. The injury must be the type of foreseeable injury that causes these activities to be dangerous. Refer to the Guille Case on page 697 of the Torts Casebook.
Analysis – Argue Causation as in Negligence
Defenses – Assumption of risk but not contributory negligence unless Plaintiff knew of danger and negligently caused miscarrying activity. Some states apply comparative negligence.
Notes – Strict liability is “founded on a policy of the law that imposes upon anyone who for his own purposes creates an abnormal risk of harm to his neighbors and bears responsibility of relieving against that harm when it does occur. The defendant’s enterprise is required to compensate for the harm it causes because of its special, abnormal, and dangerous character.” This liability is similar to negligence per se, but the activity is required to pay its own way, without that stigma, but it does pay full tort damages, including pain and suffering damages when personal injury is involved.
